NORTHERN Ireland’s bid to introduce “safe access zones” around clinics providing abortion services is legal and within competence, the UK’s Supreme Court has ruled.
The decision will be watched keenly in Scotland, where Green MSP Gillian Mackay is seeking to see similar “buffer zones” – areas in which anti-abortion protests are banned – set up around sexual health centres.
The focus of the ruling is on clause 5(2)(a) of the Northern Irish bill, which makes it a criminal offence “to do an act in a safe access zone with the intent of, or reckless as to whether it has the effect of … influencing a protected person, whether directly or indirectly”. Staff and patients at abortion clinics are covered by this “protected person” definition.
